Posted on 07/08/2004 11:00:23 PM PDT by kattracks
Well, they got the hair part right. "We think this is a dream team," Sen. Kerry announced at his first joint appearance with John Edwards. "We've got a better vision, real plans, better ideas. We've got a better sense of what's happening in America -- and we've got better hair."
In the days before Kerry named his choice for the second spot on the ticket, commentators were saying that the importance of the event was not so much whether the vice presidential pick could carry a state, far less a region, but what the choice revealed about the decision-maker. This was immediately forgotten in the bubbly aftermath, when everyone seemed to be gushing about a "charisma infusion" to the ticket.
But let's not lose sight of the fact that John Edwards' charisma, such as it is, comes at the expense of substance. If Kerry wins, the man who stands a heartbeat away from the Oval Office will be a first-term senator who never held public office before 1999 and voted irregularly. But he has quite a smile.
This selection is a teachable moment. Some polls are suggesting that Edwards' background as a trial lawyer is viewed more positively than negatively by voters. The Republican Party should tackle that head-on. The commentators are swooning over Edwards' "two Americas" stump speech -- which disproves the common assumption that the one thing the press will not tolerate is hypocrisy.
John Edwards is a multimillionaire because he has extracted huge settlements in tort cases. Who pays the price for these multimillion dollar recoveries? Is it the corporate executives? Not at all. When juries hit up corporations for millions of dollars, executives don't see their salaries cut or their jobs endangered. Corporations simply pass along the expense to consumers in the form of higher prices. There is a tort premium on nearly every product you buy. To spell it out a bit further, it is the members of Edwards' "other America" who have paid the price for his success.
Edwards specialized in medical malpractice cases. The abuse of tort law in medicine has contributed to medical inflation (which Democrats then turn around and decry). Because doctors are spooked by the possibility of lawsuits, they order millions of dollars of unnecessary tests and procedures every year. And in some fields, like obstetrics, many doctors are bailing out altogether because the cost of malpractice insurance is so prohibitive. There are sections of this country where it is now impossible to find an obstetrician.
But this is more than a practical problem. It's a moral issue, as well. One of Edwards' specialties, on which he made millions, was suing obstetricians on behalf of babies with cerebral palsy. He mastered the emotional appeal to the jury. A signature line would refer to a brain-damaged child by name and then proceed with "Jennifer cannot speak for herself. She can only speak through me. She doesn't ask for your pity. She asks for your strength. She doesn't ask for your sympathy, but for your courage."
These "courageous" jurors would then come in with verdicts of millions against the doctor who delivered the baby and the hospital in which the birth took place. Edwards would pocket a third of the recovery.
There's only one problem: the claim that a Caesarean section would have prevented the cerebral palsy -- the lynchpin of the plaintiffs' cases -- is dubious. As Dr. Murray Goldstein told CNS news.com, "The overwhelming majority of children that are born with developmental brain damage, the ob/gyn could not have done anything about it. ..." Dr. John Freeman, professor of neurology and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, explained, "A great many of these cases are due to subtle infections of the child before birth."
Besides, most children born with cerebral palsy never receive a penny through the tort system. Lawyers like Edwards take only the cases that seem winnable. And while Edwards calls his ambulance-chasing "helping the little guy," he was careful to help those whose plight he could exploit for his own benefit, as well.
Sympathizers call it charisma. But a more realistic assessment is that Edwards is a smooth-talking salesman hawking a phony product.
©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Moona?
GREAT point. This needs to be hammered home, again and again, EVERY time we talk with Democrat fence-sitters and class warfare-types between now and November.
Not So Fast, John Kerry; Survey Says President Bush Has Best Hair
PR Newswire ^ | July 8, 2004
Posted on 07/08/2004 5:07:12 PM EDT by Leroy S. Mort
STERLING, Ill., July 8 /PRNewswire/ -- May the best candidate win, but when it comes to the best presidential hair, George W. Bush has America's vote, according to Wahl Clipper Corporation's 2004 Grooming Survey and First Ever "Index" on men's grooming habits.
Despite John Kerry's recent claim that the Kerry-Edwards ticket has the best hair, Wahl's survey found that the majority of Americans overwhelmingly voted for Bush's hair over Kerry's (Bush -- 51 percent; Kerry -- 30 percent; neither -- 10 percent; don't know -- 9 percent.)
"Wahl isn't choosing sides politically, but when it comes to what we know best -- hair -- we're interested in what Americans think is a fitting hairstyle for their president," said Pat Anello, Director of Marketing for Wahl Clipper. "Whether you're running for president or running a busy schedule, Wahl has innovative, quality products that make grooming easy."
The truth behind these and other hairy facts have been tabulated to form Wahl's first annual Grooming Index, designed to benchmark the grooming behavior and habits of American men (age 18 and over).
The survey, conducted by Opinion Research Corporation, is based on telephone surveys of 1,009 adults, 18 and over (including 512 men) conducted between May 6-9, 2004 with a margin of error among all adults plus or minus three (3) percent (and a margin of error plus or minus four percent among men).
For complete survey findings, visit http://www.wahlclipper.com/home.htm
Yeah, and I keep hammering away at this, but "Mop-Top" (running mate to "Flip-Flop") has never taken one pro-bono case in his career. So much for the little man's advocate.
I can hear the DUpes now: "Yeah, but Edwards' hair is gonna wipe up the floor with Cheney's do!"
Besides being an obvious friend of big business--much more tentacled in America than Haliburton--Edwards truly deserves the Limbaugh label as "the Breck girl."
Kerry and Edwards should be indentified as "the John-John Twins." Not only will it connect their pairing with an effete playboy who couldn't pilot an airplane, it would also harken back to those days when the real "John-John" was just a "Baby-Baby."
Old Kennedy Democrats will get the subliminally tainted message (spilling over on Fat Ted) and Generation X'ers and young Republicans will get the good laughs at the Democrats' latest joke.
Is that right? NEVER? Wow, talk about greed.
YOU KNOW WHAT WE NEED TO DO FREEPERS? We need to start telling people that Edwards is going to just kill Cheney in the debates. You know, the old "lower-the-expectations game" for Cheney. Then when the VEEP cleans his clock, it'll be an even bigger victory for our team.
the choice of edwards represents the triumph of style over
substance.
Yessir that's right. And the Bush/Cheney people need to make it known.
It's too bad she didn't also point out that when Edwards was in a position to support legislation aiding ALL parents of children with CP, not just those on retainer to him, he failed them.
I would triple-dog-dare for Edwards to bring up the "two Americas" rhetoric on Chaney. Chaney on the other hand good go two directions with it:
1) "Yes, John! This a good point you make. There are two americas as you've stated. There's South America which has governments that are run predominately by despots who have implemented many or all of the policies that you, John Kerry and the Democrat party has espoused and then there's North America..."
Or
2) "There is John? And could you tell us which America you and John Kerry currently live in?
Yeah, they're a genuine couple of hairballs.
bttt
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